Horizon: A Star Wars Story
by Davetek463
Summary: With the destruction of the Death Star, the Alliance to Restore the Republic needs to abandon its base on Yavin IV. Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors lead a mission to the ice planet Hoth to scout it as a potential location...
1. A long time ago

_A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..._

* * *

_HORIZON: A STAR WARS STORY_

* * *

The Alliance to Restore the Republic is on borrowed time. Destroying the Death Star only delayed the Galactic Empire's goal of wiping out the freedom fighters.

With little time to lose, General Jan Dodanna has organized several scouting missions to otherwise inhospitable worlds with the goal of finding a location for a new base.

Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors lead one such mission in the hope of buying the Alliance more time to restore freedom to the galaxy...


	2. ONE

**GR-75 Medium Cruiser ****_Horizon_**

**Crew: 6**

**Passengers: 90**

**Destination: The Hoth System**

Although the cruiser was able to accommodate the ninety-six people it was carrying, it was not strictly designed for that many people at once comfortably. The reasoning behind packing the _Horizon _so tight was twofold. First, with more people, the scouting mission could be carried out much quicker than it normally would. Second, if the Empire did strike Yavin IV before the remaining Alliance personnel could be evacuated, there would still be enough remaining to continue to fight.

That was what Kyle had been told at any rate. It was probably true. Dodanna was a smart man and an honest one. Kyle trusted him. That didn't mean he had to like the conditions of the trip though. He was used to only working with Jan or alone. Having so many people in such close proximity would have been overwhelming enough, but being in charge of the mission meant that he was in constant demand. They had been underway for several days and only now had he been able to slip away.

Even as tightly packed as it was, the starboard cargo pod was free of people and felt as wide open as the plains of Naboo or even the deserts of Tatooine or Jakku. The air was stale and a bit oily but the slight breeze from the air circulation felt nice. It wasn't as warm as the rest of the ship was either.

Kyle closed his eyes and paced up and down the center of the hold between the crates.

"Excuse me, sir?"

He tensed at being called "sir" and was about to brusquely dismiss the speaker until he recognized the voice and relaxed.

"You know I don't like being called that," he said.

Jan was leaning against the door that led into the compartment, her arms crossed against the dirty chest of her tan flight suit and her long hair pulled back into its usual style.

"I know," she said and laughed. "You need to lighten up a bit."

"Probably," he said. "They finally let you get away."

"Sort of," she said as she pushed off from the wall. "I said that I would try and find you."

"Well, you found me."

"Did I?"

Kyle laughed. "Maybe not then." Then he said, "You think these kids are ready?"

"They're not much younger than you, and some are even a bit older," Jan said. Kyle was only twenty-five, but being in a leadership role made him feel older. And she was right about some members of the expedition being older – Jan herself was barely a year older.

"How much longer until we arrive?" she said.

Kyle consulted his datapad. "Another few hours."

"Good," Jan said. "Plenty of time for a few hands of pazaak."

* * *

Nom and Jori Carver spent so much time together that the revelation they were brother and sister was usually met with raised eyebrows. Not only was there no way they were biologically related (Nom was human and Jori was Mirailan) but no one in the Alliance who had a brother or sister got along as well as they did. But Nom and Jori were the family they chose for each other, both having been orphans. They found common cause in hating the Empire and looked out for each other until they fell in with the Alliance.

They sat huddled in the compartment that had been designated their quarters but was little more than a glorified storage closet. With no ventilation, the room was hot and stuffy. Jori didn't seem to mind, her head rested against Nom's shoulder sleeping while he hummed a half-remembered lullaby from his childhood.

The ship thrummed softly as it travelled through hyperspace. It was one of the few places he felt truly safe – one of the few places that _was_ truly safe. Even the base on Yavin IV was at risk, as the entire Alliance found out. But in the blue tunnel of hypserspace, no one could attack them, the Empire couldn't track them. It was still something, even if it was temporary.

Jori stirred. "That sounds familiar," she said without opening her eyes. "What is it?"

"I don't remember," Nom said. "Only really remember bits and pieces."

"Oh no. Did you bump your head?"

"Not recently," he said and laughed. "How'd you sleep?"

Jori grunted and Nom simply nodded in agreement. The designated sleeping quarters on a GR-75 weren't all that comfortable to begin with. With double the normal amount of passengers (even with the appropriate retrofits) and being stuffed into a closet did not make for good sleeping or living conditions.

"Did I miss anything?" Jori said.

"Not a damn thing," Nom said. Jori didn't say anything nor make any sounds. She didn't have to. Nom knew exactly what she was thinking. This wasn't due to a deep sibling connection – everyone on the ship was (whether they said so or not) thinking the same thing.

_Why hadn't the captain briefed them on anything?_

The mission had been put together quickly and "need to know" was unheard of in the Alliance. Being only a few hours out from the destination and not getting any sort of intelligence or briefing at all was unusual, though.

"I wonder if the captain even knows anything," Jori said and closed her eyes again.

"He must," Nom said. "How else could the ship's course have been set?"

"Maybe the droid knows." Jori snorted.

* * *

The match was tied. Jan had won one set, Kyle the other.

The green cards in front of Jan totaled 14 and she had two cards in her hand. Kyle's green cards totaled 16 and the remaining card in his hand was a +/-3. He had two options: play the card as +3 and stand at 19, or hit again and hope that the total didn't go over 23. Had he been playing in a cantina for credits, he would have taken the safer option and stood at 19.

But he wasn't, so he hit. Got an eight. He put the card in his hand down anyway.

"Ha," Jan said. "I win." She put the two cards she held in her hand down. Two cards with a value of one. Not terrible, but not great either. Just for fun, Jan turned over the next card from the main deck.

It was a five.

"You were doomed from the start," she said and laughed. "Do we have time for another match?"

In answer to her question, Kyle's comlink beeped. He removed the black and white cylinder from his belt and brought it to his mouth.

"Go for Katarn."

The voice of the mission's protocol droid, M-7W9, came through the miniature speaker. "Sir, we're nearing our destination. Approximate one standard hour before arrival."

"Thank you, Emsev," Kyle said. "Prepare the briefing packet distribution for the ground teams and call everyone to the main deck in fifteen minutes."

"Yes sir."

"Katarn out," he said and returned the comlink to his belt.

Jan gathered the pazaak cards from the crate that they had been using as a table. "So, there _is_ a briefing."

"Yes," Kyle said and sighed. He pulled his datapd from another pouch on his belt and tapped the screen a few times. "But there isn't much." He handed the pad to Jan. She scrolled through the file and raised her eye brow.

"'Day temperature: cold. Night temperature: colder,'" she quoted. "Whoever put this together must have had a good laugh for themselves."

"It's not quite the weakest intelligence report I've ever seen, but it's far from the greatest either."

"What was the worst?" Jan handed to datapad back to Kyle.

"Back when I was still with the Empire, I saw a report on the planet Kejim. It only had one word. 'Sucks.'"

"So what happened?"

"Well, the person who wrote it was pretty low ranking, a newly minted lieutenant. The CO was a creative fellow though. Name was Fyyar, I think. Stripping an officer of their rank is difficult to the point that it's effectively impossible. But he found a few loopholes and put the lieutenant on refresher detail."

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"Have you ever seen or smelled the refresher on a Star Destroyer that's been on a deep space patrol for standard months?"

Jan shook her head and made a face.

"The second-worst criminal in the Empire is whoever signed off on using the Rexo Company has the primary supplier of food. You could set your chrono by how reliably after eating the food would send you running in an undignified manner to the nearest refresher. It was so bad that even the strictest of inspectors would look the other way if they found contraband foodstuffs. Which was often."

They exited the cargo pod and were about to enter the lift when Kyle motioned they take the stairs up.

"You really don't want to do this, do you?" Jan said.

"Titles make my skin crawl," Kyle said. "Even less I like having to give big presentations. That's why I told Emsev to distribute the information we have on Hoth."

"Do you want me to do it? We're a team on this, remember."

"Maybe," Kyle said as they got the main deck. "I'll do part of it."

He took a deep breath and entered the main cabin.

* * *

Nom and Jori stood near the outer edge of the room. They had been some of the last to arrive – Jori hadn't been especially interested in getting up to attend the briefing. She complained that she was tired and didn't feel like moving. When Nom pointed out that they had been more or less stationary for most of the trip, she reminded him that being cooped up for a long time and not doing much of anything could be just as tiring as running around the base.

The rest that has assembled were mostly human, with a few Twi'lek, and a couple of Zabrak. All that Nom knew for sure was that Hoth was cold which was why the mission was comprised mostly of humans. Some of the Rodians and Sullustans who had initially volunteered for the mission were disappointed at being turned away, but understood that because time was of the essence there wouldn't be time to acquire or even rig cold weather gear for them. It was something that couldn't be helped and most were content to join the mission as "expedition security," fancy words for the ones to keep the Alliance going in case the Yavin base fell.

"There you two are," said a voice behind them. Nom turned and saw Ben Astar. Ben had been a sort of mentor to Nom and Jori when they first joined the Alliance and even after they had learned the ropes they remained friends. "I thought maybe you had gotten lost."

Sorry," Jori said. "We didn't want you to have all the fun."

Nom was about to chime in when the room went silent. Captains Katarn and Ors were standing at the front of the crowd. The spindly limbed protocol droid joined them shortly after along with the red and white astromech that served as support crew.

Captain Katarn cleared his throat. "Thank you all for coming." A few of the gathered murmured while most stayed silent. It was well known that Katarn had been an Imperial officer albeit a low ranking one and there was some distrust of him because of that. It looked like Katarn knew that from his stance and the way he shuffled his feet.

"So," Katarn said as he cleared his throat. "I've instructed M-7 to transmit the intelligence we have on our destination to all of your datapads which you should be receiving now."

At that moment, Nom felt his datapad vibrate. He looked around as the rest of those gathered looked down at the information they had received. He checked his own datapad and was less than impressed with what he saw. Glancing back up, he saw Katarn adjusting the brown leather pauldron on his shoulder while Ors stood relaxed with her hands behind her back.

"Is this a joke?" someone asked and several voices joined the dissent.

"No, it's not," Ors said. "Intel is thin on this one."

"I'll say," Ben said. "This temperature part is a joke."

"Probably," Katarn said. "I wasn't too thrilled when I read that either but it's nothing we didn't already know."

Ors spoke up. "As the report indicates, there are no settlements and a very small amount of wildlife. Some of the wildlife is aggressive but there's so little that we're not anticipating a problem. Nevertheless, survey teams will be fully arms: rifles, sidearms, vibroknives.

Any questions?"

Nom looked around. He saw Jori and Ben and the rest of the gathered looking around at each other. But silence prevailed.

"Okay," Katarn said. "Go gear up. We make planetfall in sixty-three minutes."


End file.
